Formula One set to make India Debut in October 2011

I am a die-hard Formula One fan – It is such an exhilarating sports that you find an adrenaline rush every-time your favorite team / driver comes on screen on the race-day.

India now has a good presence in Formula One – Force India team is owned by dynamic liquor baron Vijay Mallya. This is the 3rd year of their presence on the circuit and they are one of the most improved Formula1 teams. Karun Chandok is currently the lone Indian driver racing with Hispania Racing Team (HRT) in Formula – He is also the 2nd Indian driver after Narain Karthikeyan who made debut in 2007.

Coming back to the big news – India will be one of the very few nations who will have be hosting their own Formula One Circuit. The FIA released its race schedule Wednesday last week, and it features Indian Grand Prix on October 30, 2011. Off-course, there is a small caveat – The Indian Grand Prix circuit has to pass the Strict FIA review to be held on July 2011.

The reason why I am confident is – The Indian Grand Prix circuit is built privately and sponsored wholly by Jaypee Group. With no involvement of Government in this whole affair, it is quite unlikely that we will see any CWG-esque like fiasco with completion of Indian F1 circuit.

The Jaypee Group has signed a 10-year deal with the FIA to create the 5.14 km circuit and conduct the event, through its Jaypee Sports International arm.

2011 Formula One Racing Schedule

Date

Venue

March 13, 2011

Bahrain

March 27, 2011

Australia

April 10, 2011

Malaysia

April 17, 2011

China

May 8, 2011

Turkey

May 22, 2011

Spain

May 29, 2011

Monaco

June 12, 2011

Canada

June 26, 2011

Europe

July 10, 2011

Great Britain

July 24, 2011

Germany

July 31, 2011

Hungary

August 28, 2011

Belgium

September 11, 2011

Italy

September 25, 2011

Singapore

October 9, 2011

Japan

October 16, 2011

Korea

October 30, 2011

India (Subject to the Review of the circuit)

November 13, 2011

Abu Dhabi

November 27, 2011

Brazil

2011 Formula One season will be one of the longest yet, with the number of F1 races going to 20. India will also become the seventh Asia-Pacific nation to join the F1 calendar along with Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.

There is no doubt, I will be there in Delhi to witness the next year’s Indian Grand Prix extravaganza – anyone else as excited as I am about this ?

About Arun Prabhudesai

Arun Prabhudesai is founder / chief editor at trak.in. He jumped the Entrepreneurship bandwagon in early 2008 after a long 13 year stint in I.T Industry. You can follow him on twitter @trakin and Facebook.
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5 comments

Any work done by the private sector is far better (atleast 1000% ) more efficient than any public institution cause they are looking at profitability and efficiency and simply cannot afford delays or over-runs. Now they rightly deserve to get the ticket revenues.If only every road is given to the Private sector along with the right to collect toll then we can get quality roads in a much faster rate and at low costs. Note that since the UPA govt came to power in 2004 the Golden quadrilateral project has hardly moved,infact Mr Chidambaram said that it is now costing around Rs 1-2 Crore for every km of road laid. If this was given 100% to private sector they will finish it for half the costs. The mantra of pro reform India should be PRIVATIZE PRIVATIZE PRIVATIZE

Abhilash, It is set to happen in Noida – Yes, Earlier Hyd was the venue, but it was supposed to be done with Govt. backing…and they seem to have backed out later… Jaypee group has now taken over completely and have sponsored the whole circuit construction..